Virtues Versus Vices: Choosing What Controls Your Life

The Foundation of Everything

Everything is about virtues. If a thing is working well, it is because there are certain qualities present that keep it working and vice versa.

Men live by one of these two things: virtues or vices.

We should make up our lives to never at any moment submit ourselves to the leadership or control of a vice because we are controlled at every moment of our life by a virtue or a vice.

Examples of the Virtue-Vice Dynamic

At family level, you are either being led by love or selfishness. Hard work is a virtue. Laziness is a vice.

If you can identify anything as a vice, you should know that it does not qualify to be your master or the influence to which you will be subjected. And for every vice, there is an opposite virtue you are meant to live by.

The Biblical Call to Add Virtue Upon Virtue

"But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins." (2 Peter 1:5-9 NKJV)

The Destructive Power of Vices

A life full of vices or moments led by vices messes up God's agenda in a Christian's life. Every moment you function in a vice, you are destroying something divine. You compromise divine agenda.

When you start thinking about yourself alone, you begin to spoil things.

God's Agenda Versus Personal Comfort

When you go to only places where you are celebrated and not where you are tolerated, you have excluded yourselves from the agenda of God. God is only interested in sending you where you are NEEDED not where you feel welcomed or not.

As Christians, learn to ask "What's in it for the Lord?" instead of "What's in it for me?"

Choosing Joy Despite Circumstances

Your unhappy moments are moments where divine agenda can pass you by. As a Christian, choose to be joyful. It is an internal state of being that can be controlled by you even if you do not have the power to influence what happens in your surroundings.

True Loyalty and Honor

Your loyalty to a person or place must go beyond what you are getting from them for as long as they are not destroying or making attempt to destroy your virtues.

To be loyal, you must be an honorable person. Someone that values integrity.

Prioritizing the Right Things

It takes an honorable heart to present your imperfect work and still claim it as yours in the presence of better alternatives from or by others. Do not live in denial of your actions in order to avoid the shame that comes with it.

The Foundation of Christian Behavior

The fundamental behavior of all Christian behavior is His Lordship.

Being exalted as a result of humility is a sequel but not the reason for being humble.

Never Choose Vice as a Solution

Never agree at any time that the way out of a situation is a vice.

If you put another vice inside a vice, it will result in explosion. Do not respond to vice with vice.

Virtue will put an end to any vice.

Conclusion

Every moment of our Christian life presents us with a choice between virtue and vice. Understanding that we are always controlled by one or the other should motivate us to consistently choose virtues that align with God's divine agenda. By asking "What's in it for the Lord?" instead of focusing on personal gain, maintaining joy regardless of circumstances, and responding to vice with virtue, we ensure that our lives remain fruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and advance His purposes on earth.